valanche
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English
[edit]Noun
[edit]valanche (plural valanches)
- Obsolete form of avalanche.
- 1766, Tobias Smollett, Travels Through France and Italy:
- But the great danger of travelling here when the sun is up, proceeds from what they call the Valanches. These are balls of snow detached from the mountains which over-top the road, either by the heat of the sun, or the humidity of the weather. A piece of snow thus loosened from the rock, though perhaps not above three or four feet in diameter, increases sometimes in its descent to such a degree, as to become two hundred paces in length, and rolls down with such rapidity, that the traveller is crushed to death before he can make three steps on the road.